


go home

by prosodiical



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-10 13:18:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15950156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: Akira acts in time to save him, but that means Akechi is left with nothing but the scattered remains of his house of fallen cards.





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [inquisitor_tohru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inquisitor_tohru/gifts).



> I really liked your prompts! I hope you enjoy this :)

There's a fraction of a second where Akechi's sure he's dead.

Then over the sound of alarms and the bulwark closing there's Joker's hand on his arm, a strange rush of light and sound and a feeling like he's being torn apart at the seams —

— and the world coalesces into being again, Akechi's vision wavering even as he's unable to see past the wide fall of Joker's long coat. It's better than the cold, hateful eyes of his cognitive double, the bone-deep knowledge that he'd never get out of that mess alive, but...

"Oh man, really?" Skull's voice groans, sounding as nauseous as Akechi feels. "Didn't we agree Goho-Ms were a last resort?"

"That _was_ a last resort, idiot," Mona says. "Joker, is he okay?"

Joker sets a careful hand on Akechi's forehead. Akechi squeezes his eyes shut. "Are you?" he asks, pitched low and quiet, intimate like their conversations over coffee at Leblanc, like the amused crook of his mouth when he said _honey, I'm home_. "I'm sorry," he adds, with that disingenuous honesty that still makes spiteful fury thrum under Akechi's skin, "but I couldn't let you die there."

"I don't care what you _want_ ," Akechi gets out through gritted teeth, the taste of blood on his tongue. He struggles to sit up, elbows beneath him, then his feet. His muscles tremble under his own weight and the world spins around him, and he's bruised and sluggishly bleeding, pain spiking at every shift. "If you had any sense at all you would've - "

"He's alive," Joker says, as if the rest of his rag-tag group can't already tell. He turns away from Akechi and Akechi's even more conscious of the sight he must make, his weaknesses exposed under the stark Metaverse sunlight, glinting down onto Shido's cruise ship. "Oracle, can you sense cognitive doubles?"

"No," she says, "not if he doesn't have any Shadows with him. And he seemed..."

"Dangerous enough without them," Queen finishes. "Joker, I think we should retreat for now. We can take Akechi-san back, at least."

"Back where?" Akechi says, derision curling in his voice. There's nowhere he can run to, not when Shido has such unqualified control over his life; it hadn't been a problem, when all of Akechi's plans against him had been protected inside his own mind, but with these morons in charge — they'll be lucky if he doesn't let Shido know their names, if he doesn't take his handgun and shoot them all dead, one by one.

He still remembers Akira's blood spreading on that stainless-steel table, the crimson spray dripping down the wall.

"- take you to Leblanc for now," Joker's saying, "he can stay with me."

Noir's voice: "Will that really be okay? Akira-kun - "

" - have to let Sojiro know before - "

" - can't you see? Joker, c'mon - "

There's static creeping along Akechi's senses, like Mementos is advancing into the edges of the world.

A hand lands on Akechi's shoulder and Akechi reels back on complete instinct, fingers clenched tight around the offender's wrist. Joker's, he realises sluggishly, and his fingers tighten on warm skin and delicate bones as Joker looks down on him. His eyes are dark, narrowed in concern, and Akechi coughs out a laugh.

"Why do you even care what happens to me," he spits out, even as his grip falters, fingers trembling. His vision blurs. "I hate you!"

"Yeah," Akira says. His voice sounds like it's miles away. "I know."

 

Akechi wakes, hours later. He wasn't sure he would.

Disconcertingly, he's lying on a bed facing a dusty ceiling. It takes him too long to get his head together, and when he sits up he the sudden rush of reorientation leaves him dizzy. He reaches for something, anything; the plastic hilt of his toy lightsaber or the very real metal grip of his gun but he's been stripped of everything, even the pocketknife in his shoe.

Admittedly, he isn't wearing his shoes.

Akira's napping on the couch in his room, a magazine over his face. Akechi gets to his feet slowly, looking for the rest of his belongings; he's down to his shirt and trousers and socks, and he doesn't even have his phone. If Shido's called - but would he have, Akechi's pessimism wonders. Pitting him against the Phantom Thieves meant Akechi should have won or died trying, and in the former case it would be up to Akechi to report his success, tied to Shido's as it is. In the latter, there would be no one left to care.

Of course, Akechi technically still has a chance. His gaze slides over to Akira again, drawn like a magnet to the vulnerable line of his throat. Akechi has dreamed of putting his hands around it, of his thumbs digging in as he squeezed impossibly tight; Akechi has dreamed of the look in Akira's eyes if he did. Betrayal, first, and then a mirror of Akechi's anger, coaxed to the surface until there was nothing left but unrelenting hate. 

It would only take a few minutes. He wouldn't even have the time to shout.

His fingers are around Akira's throat before he can wonder if it's a good idea, a touch that's as grounding as the warmth of Akira's body trapped beneath him. Akechi's thumbs rest in the hollow between Akira's collarbones and Akira wakes in a moment compressed to a blink, the shift of his eyes to Akechi's face.

Akira is the one defenseless, but Akechi feels like he's been stripped of all masks, his weaknesses exposed.

"I could kill you right now," Akechi tells him, aiming for conversational but not quite reaching it. "It wouldn't even take that long."

"You could," Akira says, unconcerned. His tone makes Akechi's fingers twitch. "Will you?"

"I killed you," Akechi says through his teeth, "I shot you in the head and you died right in front of me - I did it once. I would do it again."

"Shido doesn't care about you," Akira says, as if that's a surprise. "He'll have you killed as soon as he's won. Before, even."

"I _know_ ," Akechi snaps. "That's stupidly obvious after we met that doppelganger."

"Then," Akira says evenly, "going back to him is pointless."

Akechi can't even say he's wrong. His fury has been kindled to a flame and yet it's futile, directionless, and beneath it all he is is hollow. He's spent so long staining his hands with the blood of Shido's empire in preparation for tearing it all down with a few well-placed words and they've bombed the foundation and left him staring at nothing but rubble. "I hate you; you should have died when I killed you and then none of this would be a problem - "

Akira's hand is on his wrist. Akechi isn't sure when it got there, this steady touch that nearly burns against his skin, still when Akechi is still faintly trembling. "We're sending out the calling card today," Akira says, tone gentled like Akechi's some pet to be coaxed, some animal to be tamed. "We could always use another Persona-user."

"You won't kill him," Akechi says. "Don't lie to me."

"We'll steal his heart." There's only honesty in Akira's steady gaze. "We could do it together."

"And the rest of your illustrious team?" Akechi says, and it comes out shaky and harsh. "What would happen once it was done? You would have brainwashed me into mindless compliance like the rest if you could, none of you are selfless enough to let me walk free."

And then - his freedom stolen, his name ground into dust; all of the recognition Akechi's scraped out of the world gone as quick as a bullet from the chamber of a gun.

Akira's finger is on the trigger. He looks at Akechi like he knows.

"It's not selfless," he says, finally. His hand has crept up to Akechi's, his knife-calloused fingers against Akechi's palm, and Akechi isn't sure when he dropped his grip; he isn't sure when he lost. Was it meeting Akira's fathomless dark eyes and seeing the mask of a friend across his face, or seeking him out, time and time again? Was it tipping his hand against them by agreeing to take them down in the first place? Was it the moment he looked Akira in the eye and thought, _in another life, if we'd met two years ago, then maybe —_ and snuffed out that possibility forever?

This isn't a second chance, because Akechi has no room in the pitiful remaining scraps of his life for those. This is Akira, looking at him, flitting through masks until he finds the right one - and beneath that, not the anger Akechi desired but... something else. Something more.

"It wouldn't be selfless," Akira says. "It'd be the most selfish thing I've ever done. But if you wanted..."

Akechi leans down, and Akira's free hand settles on the curve of his shoulder. He wants, he's _wanted_ , and there's a tense stillness to Akira's grasp that makes him think he's wanted it, too. "We could have been friends," he says, and they're a handful of breaths apart. Akira closes the distance, his mouth pliant and soft, and then Akechi is kissing him back, like it's the last thing he'll ever do.

Maybe it won't be. That's new.

Akira pulls him down, into his orbit, like he's done from the moment Akechi met him; his fingers dig into fabric until Akechi can feel the imprints on his skin. He takes from Akechi as much as Akechi takes from him, greedy and grasping for more, and there - there is the Akira he's been looking for, the one devoid of pretense, the one underneath the masks.

"We are friends," Akira says, a challenge in his gaze, and Akechi drops his head to Akira's shoulder and laughs.


End file.
